Behind-the-scenes look at major fireworks shows

The telltale BOOM goes off, followed by several more bursts, and then a series
of fireworks flash into the sky. Every 4th and 24th of July, crowds come from
far and wide to witness one of dozens of fireworks shows that light up the Salt
Lake Valley.

Behind the scenes, it’s a very different picture. “I think of it as painting a
canvas,” said Lantis Fireworks salesman and licensed Utah pyrotechnician Jeffery
Ott. “And I have the sky to paint on.”

Lantis Fireworks produces some of the major fireworks productions
in the Salt Lake Valley, including the popular Salt Lake City and Sandy City
fireworks shows. Each of those 15–20 minute fireworks displays take hours of
work to organize the performance, set up fireworks connections, coordinate with
local fire marshals and ensure safety.

Organizing

One of the most prominent shows in the Salt Lake Valley is the one where
hundreds of fireworks shoot off the roof of the Sandy City Hall every 4th of
July.

Months beforehand, Lantis Fireworks coordinates with Sandy City officials to
decide how long the show will be, how close viewers can get to Sandy City Hall
and still be safe and what music will help time out the display. In the
background of almost every fireworks show are carefully timed pieces of music
stitched together, to which the fireworks are choreographed to match tempo.

“When you’re playing the Star Spangled Banner, you’re not shooting pow pow pow,
you’re shooting one shell, then another,” Ott explained. “You want your shells
in the air to match the music. The music really dictates what you see.”

This year, it won’t just be music. Sandy City is partnering with
FM radio station Z104 to broadcast the music, along with recordings of service
members’ wives talking about them coming home.

“We try not to make it just about things exploding. The ending has always been
spectacular — we don’t expect anything less this year,” said Mearle Marsh,
community events director for Sandy City.

Marsh says this is the second year Sandy City will have fireworks
discharged from the roof of the Sandy City Hall.

“It’s a challenging location but it makes for a really beautiful setting for
the fireworks,” he said.

Lantis Fireworks and Sandy City officials have big plans for this
year’s fireworks display. There’s the “cake” fireworks: multi-shot aerial
fireworks that make a rapid staccato burst of noise during the show. Then, in
the Sandy City show, there’s the three-inch shells that light up the night sky
with a big boom, then two combine to create the overall, bigger fireworks
display. By using a mix of colors and matching several different types of
shells to music, a pyrotechnician can create an amazing fireworks show for
viewers.

Pyros

This term may sound like a dangerous person with fire, but for
fireworks, it’s the exact opposite.

“Think about a conductor conducting an orchestra — that’s what a pyro
does; they’re part conductor and part magician,” Ott said.

Lantis Fireworks’ pyrotechnicians go through extensive training
before they can even touch one of the production fireworks. According to the
state of Utah regulations, pyrotechnicians — or pyros for short — are required
to work on at least three fireworks shows and go through extensive safety
training. Once these requirements are met, a potential pyrotechnician can then
take a test to get a license that would allow them to legally shoot off
production-quality fireworks.

“Production is a 1.3G fireworks classification. The stuff that your neighbors
are doing, that’s consumer grade, that’s 1.4G. It’s measured on gram weight per
item. Consumer is supposed to be safer, less gunpowder,” Ott explained, but
cautioned that “all fireworks are explosives.”

And all that training is necessary. At every show, there are fire
marshals, firefighters and other emergency experts on hand in case something
goes wrong.

Safety

“We’re attempting to put explosives in the air in a safe manner,” Ott said.

Safety is the number one priority for Lantis Fireworks pyrotechnicians,
Ott said.

“We take every possible safety precaution from the time they’re
loaded onto the truck up until the point we shoot them, and even while we’re
shooting them,” he said. “Because the truth of it is, if you’re lucky and
something bad happens, you’ll lose a finger. If they don’t get lucky, they get
dead. You have to think like a fire marshal. Safety is always your first
priority.”

Ott remembers a few years ago during a Lantis production in the
Salt Lake Valley, and there was a wind shift.

“When a shell goes off, it doesn’t just go up into the air;
there’s often some fiery debris that comes out of the mortar tube along with
the shell,” he said. “We had some fiery debris that blew over and two-thirds of
the way through the show, it prematurely ignited part of the finale (fireworks).
So some of that ‘boom boom boom’ started going off much sooner than it was
supposed to.”

There are specific rules governing major production-style
fireworks displays. For every one-inch shell used in a fireworks show, viewers
have to be kept at a distance of 70 feet in radius from the firework discharge
zone.
This means at the Sandy City Hall, when Lantis Fireworks uses three-inch shells
to light up the night sky, nobody except for the licensed pyrotechnicians and
safety personnel can be within 210 feet in any direction from the roof of the
Sandy City Hall where the fireworks are set off.

Local fire officials will be on hand at these major fireworks displays. Salt
Lake City Fire spokeswoman Audra Sorenson said they prefer it when Utahns visit
the fireworks shows instead of setting off their own fireworks, because it’s
much more safe.

“Going to a fireworks display that’s sponsored by a city or
company is ideal for us. They work hand-in-hand with the city to make sure the
location, the display and conditions are ideal so that they’re discharged properly,”
Sorenson said. “We can work hand-in-hand with those shows’ teams to make sure
it’s a safe fireworks display.”

Set up

For a 20-minute show, it can take a team of pyrotechnicians 10–12
hours to set up the fuses, tubes, electronics and fireworks for the display.

“You have to wire in every shell by hand. Then if it’s choreographed, every
shell has a specific place it has to be wired in,” Ott said.

But when it’s done right, you end up creating a lasting and
memorable experience for everyone watching. From young children who’ve never
seen a fireworks show, to the people who never miss a fireworks show.

“Our whole goal is the ooh, ahh, wow,” Ott said. “That two-three
seconds of silence between the last shell going off and thunderous applause
that often follows a show… is beautiful.”